At 1:20 yesterday afternoon, a fire broke out on the roof of a construction site at the Upper Valley Plaza in West Lebanon, sending flames into the sky and two workers to the hospital. The workers were apparently dismantling pipes on the roof as part of the demolition of the building when the fire broke out.
Both injured workers were taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for treatment. The extent of their injuries was not immediately available but preliminary reports indicate that both men escaped serious injury, according to Lebanon Fire Chief Steve Allen.
Only minutes after the fire broke out, it had expanded to cover an area of about 4,000 square feet, Allen said. Allen and his team of fire fighters were driving in the neighborhood when they saw the fire burning.
Allen explained that his team "reported the fire even before we received the call" that a fire had broken out. "We had an excellent response time," he said.
Rick Angrews, the job foreman at the construction site who placed the 911 call, said he was surprised at how quickly the fire department had reacted. The response time "was under 60 seconds," he said.
After arriving on the scene, Allen and his team evacuated the building and sought care for the injured workers. Then they began to extinguish the fire. "It only took 15 to 20 minutes to get the fire knocked down," said Allen, attributing the speed in which the fire was extinguished to his team's quick response time.
The exact cause of the fire is under investigation by the Lebanon Fire Department led by Deputy Fire Chief George Sykes. The investigation should be completed by the end of the week, Sykes said.
"To say exactly how the fire started would be premature right now until the investigation is over," said Allen.
However, Sykes said that "preliminary indications are that it was caused by propane gas used in construction activities related to the demolition of the building." Despite the presence of the gas, Sykes said there had been no explosion and that it was "absolutely an accidental fire."
There was very little structural damage because the fire broke out on a construction site in which the workers were in the process of gutting an existing building, Angrews said.
The fire should have no effect on the construction of the building, which is set to become a Coles clothing store. According to Sykes, the fire and his investigation "shouldn't delay their project." In fact, shortly after the fire was taken down, subcontractors went back in and resumed their work.
